It Really Is a (Wednesday) Hodgepodge!

1. Share one fun thing you did last week, while the Hodgepodge was on 'spring break'.
~ The young adults from our church organized an open mic night and invited several local Christian musicians.  Tim didn't go, but Megan did!!  It was a lot of fun.

2.  April 10th is National Sibling Day...do you have siblings, and if so are you close? Share a favorite story featuring one or all of your siblings. If you don't have siblings, did you ever wish you did?
~ No siblings for me.  Yes, I did wish for a sibling...an older brother to be specific (don't ask me how I thought that would happen). 

3. Is it important to you to 'buy American'? Why or why not? How much of an effort do you make to 'buy American'? If you're not American, insert your own country in the blank. 
~ Wellllllll, it's kind of important, but I don't really go out of my way to find "made in America" stuff.  If it's  there, it's made in America and the price and quality of the product is comparable to the same item made else where then I will buy the American product.  Sadly, all too often the price is higher or the quality inferior.  In that case it comes down to the better value for my hard-earned dollars.

4. Besides The Bible, what book has impacted your spirituality in some way?
~ If I'm being honest, in my younger, pre-Christian days I was greatly influenced by Confessions of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach, the same man who wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  Complete new age drivel.

5. April showers bring May flowers or so the saying goes.  Do you find rainy days calming or depressing?  When were you last caught in a rainstorm? What's blooming in your neck of the woods today? 
~ I'm not a fan of endless rainy days one after the other....the gray begins to depress me.  However, I love a good thunderstorm and there is nothing like a nice all day rain in the summer as an excuse to close the blinds, pop some popcorn, and pop a favorite chick flick in (mine is Dirty Dancing).  As for being caught in a rainstorm....I don't know, probably last Fall.  Not a lot is blooming here, yet.  The crocus are up and I did see a few daffodils yesterday, but that's pretty much it.

6. What's your favorite yellow food?
~ Fresh corn on the cob, cooked on the grill, dripping with butter, and seasoned with a pinch of seasoned salt.

7. April is National Poetry Month...what's a poem that holds special meaning for you, and why is it special?
~ I've always liked The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.  I like the imagery of facing a fork in life's path and having to choose and the choice making a difference in how life turns out.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

~ I just finished up Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen this week.  My friend, Dawn, over at Beneath the Surface: Breath of Faith invited her readers to join her in following the daily prayer prompts and to meet up once a week on her blog to reflect and share on our experiences.  We actually followed the prompts for longer than 40 days because we did this over Easter and the book contains special reflections for Holy Week.  Today is the final meet up and the author, Rachel G. Hackenberg is hanging out with us.  Head over if you've been following along or if you just heard today and you're curious.

Easter Hodgepodge

Please *click* the button to visit Joyce,
the creator and hostess of the blog hop
known as the Wednesday Hodgepodge.

1. What are your plans for Easter? Are you cooking a big lunch or dinner?  Dyeing eggs? Attending a sun rise service?  Eating too much chocolate?

~ We are going to church at 10:00.  My mom and her husband and our daughter are going with us.  After that, since our son and his family won't be here, we are all going with a group of people from church to a buffet.  I am really excited that Mom and John and Megan are going.

2.  What is something you feel too young to do?
~ Have grey hair, pluck my chin, have arthritis, hear the kids on the bus talk about a celebrity and ask "Who?"....

3.  "Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud...it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs..."  

Of the characteristics mentioned in the biblical definition of love which do you find most difficult to live out and why?
~ I'm not sure....maybe the one about keeping no record of wrongs.  It's tough not to dredge up old stuff when we're hurt or angry and want the other person to KNOW how much they've hurt us.

4. What's a springtime flower you associate with your childhood?
~ Daffodils.  When we lived in the wildlife preserve the woods around the houses were filled with them.  Someone had planted them a long time ago, I guess, and then they just took off.  It was beautiful.

5.  Ever sung karaoke? If so, what's your go-to song? If not and you're given the opportunity, would you? 
~Never have.  Never will.  The bucket in which I carry my tune has rusted clear through.  I do not sing in front of anyone with the ability to hear.  I do, however, rock out in the car.  Regularly.  So if you're in Pennsylvania, a little south and east of Pittsburgh and you see a little silver Toyota Rav 4 rockin' all over the road....wave and say "hi!"

6. What is something you keep in a basket?
~ All my eggs?  Laundry?  Guess that's about it.

7.  When was the last time you felt foolish?
~ Pfffffft!  That's an every day occurrence.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
~ My random thought is that I don't really like the random thought portion of the meme.  I inevitably draw a blank and then agonize over trying to think of something profound or incredibly witty.

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Wednesday also means it's time to check in with the Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen crowd over at Dawn's blog, Beneath The Surface: Breath of Faith.  Stop over and be blessed by Dawn's writing and see what everyone is saying.

"Springing" Into Writing & the Hodgepodge

Good morning and a big thank you to Dawn of Beneath the Surface: Breath of Faith for inviting me to guest-host this week!  I am so honored to share in this journey of Writing to God with you.

I've been keeping journals since I was about 8 years old and bought my first little blue diary with a tiny silver key at the local G.C. Murphy's.  So, it felt pretty natural to start journaling about my journey once I became a Christian and once I got over my pre-Christian hangups about what prayer should and shouldn't be, I started writing a lot of my prayers down.  As someone who struggles with ADD, writing my prayers down helped (and still helps) me keep my focus.  

When Dawn first introduced her plan to form a little community of people all working through the same devotional book I was intrigued, but honestly thought "I do not need another thing to do."  It kept coming back to me, though, and after praying about it I decided to join in.  What I was already doing was very similar, so it wouldn't be too big of an adjustment.  I thought it would be nice to have the directed prompts every day and the feedback from the other people who where doing it.

**Read the rest of the post over at Dawn's blog.

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1. March 20th is the first day of spring...is she a lion or a lamb in your part of the world? 
~ Okay, I admit I'm doing this on Tuesday evening, but it's cold, windy and every now and then there are some snow flurries out there, but from the sound of things....Wednesday will see Spring come roaring in like a lion.  Wake up temperature in the 20's with a windchill in the teens and snow later in the day.  (Somebody shoot the groundhog!)

2. What's the most dreaded task on your spring clean to-do list?  Do you have a 'plan of attack'?
~ It's probably my bedroom.  It's the one room in the house we've never done anything to in the 19 years we've lived here.  Yes, you read that right....19 years!  At this point it's looking every one of those years.  I don't really have a plan other than I'd love to gut it and start over from scratch.

3. Peas...love 'em or hate 'em?  What's a favorite dish you make using peas?
~ I don't hate them, but can't say I'm all that excited about them, either.  I will eat them, but not enough to have an actual favorite pea recipe.

4.  Do you feel under appreciated?
~ Big time, especially by my kids, but I'm learning that's my issue, not theirs.  I can't do anything about their attitudes and behavior, but I can control my reaction.

5. Have you been using Google Reader?  If so, what are you switching to now that GR has announced retirement?  If not, how do you read your favorite blogs? 
~ Is it terrible to admit as someone who has been blogging since 2001 that I really don't know if I use Google Reader or not because I don't really know what Google Reader does?  I have blogs in my sidebar and I've bookmarked blogs.  If I want to read a blog I actually go visit it.  Switching?  I don't know.  Do I have to have a reader?  I am hopeless at the technical stuff.

6. Anne Bradstreet is credited with the following quote~

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant;  if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." 

Agree or Disagree?  Why?
~ Agree!  Just look at the kids (and adults) in the world who have had everything handed to them.  They don't appreciate what they have and just sort of expect things.  If we didn't get sick, we wouldn't know how great health is.  We need both sides of the coin.

7.  When did you last 'spring for something'?  What was it?
~ Spring for??  When dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

8.  Insert your own random thought here?
~ The boys in Ohio....the ones who raped a girl at a party, video taped it, and posted it to YouTube....how do you feel about their sentence?  Do you think the penalty for what they did was severe enough?  Do you think it was too severe?  At 16 and 17 they were sentenced as juveniles.  Do you agree with that?  At those ages do you think they've reached the age of accountability?  If they don't have compassion at that age, will they "grow into it"?

I admit I struggle with my feelings on this one.  As a Christian I believe in forgiveness, but I also believe that doesn't mean we escape the consequences of our actions.  And these boys....at 16 and 17....I feel they know right from wrong.  I'm just not sure I agree with sentencing them as juveniles.  I love football, but I have "issues" with the system that brings these boys up from a very young age (if they have talent and ability) to think they are "golden" and "untouchable" that someone will fix it, whatever it is.  Disagree?  Just look around the NFL at all the things players do and mostly get away with.  It's only been recently that the league is beginning to crack down.

Anyway.....just curious how others are viewing it.

Breathe Truth

I'm joining up again today with Dawn and the others participating in the Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen.  It's not a blog hop in the traditional sense.  It's more of a....community, I guess.  We are all reading the devotions and writing our prayers according to each day's prompt on our own, but each Wednesday throughout the exercise we meet up on Dawn's blog to connect and share how God has been using the exercise to speak to us.

What I noticed this past week is that over and over the same "theme" kept coming up and not just in the devotions and prayer, but also in the women's group lesson and in the message at church Saturday evening.  I don't believe in coincidence, but I do believe in Godincidences....things that there's just no way they happened randomly, but were orchestrated by God to make something happen, teach something, or provide something.

The "theme" I kept seeing repeated was breathe.  God has poured out the knowledge that I am to be filled to overflowing with the absolute Truth.

Last Friday I wrote:

Fill me, Spirit! Fill my heart. Fill my soul.  Fill every cell that is me.  Fill me that I might BE prayer.  That every thought, every action would be a prayer - of praise, of worship, of thanksgiving, of submission, of supplication, and of intervention.

And Monday, after a weekend filled with Godincidences, these are the words that flowed from my heart:

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out...I need to take deep, deep, restful, filling breaths of you, of Truth.  

Yes, breathe in Truth, breathe out Truth on each breath even as I breathe in more.  Fill me, consume me, make my very life Truth.

Dawn has asked me to guest host the community on an upcoming Wednesday of my choosing.  I think I'm going to tell her I'll be glad to do it next week.  I hope you'll come over to her blog and visit me there.

Now, on to the Wednesday Hodgepodge with Joyce.

1. Do you play games of luck/chance for money? Have you ever played bingo for money? Visited a casino?  Placed a bet on a horse? Bought a lottery ticket?
~ Yes, to all of the above, but not with any regularity or any huge amounts of money.  When we go to Chincoteague the firemen have a bingo game running nightly at the carnival.  Cost to play?  25 cents per card.  Even when the jackpot is $300 million, we don't buy more than $5 worth of tickets and sometimes we don't buy any.  We never make a special trip to go to a casino, but if there is one when we go somewhere we will stop in.  We usually allow ourselves $20 seed money and that's it.  We'll play with anything we win, but we never kick in more.

2.  Will you be preparing and/or dining on the traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage meal this St. Patrick's Day? Mashed-baked-hash browned-french fried...your favorite way to have potatoes? 
~ I haven't even thought about it.  I usually make corned beef and cabbage.  I am Irish, after all, but I'm not sure I've recovered from making it as a covered dish for church last year....and having an entire crockpot of the stuff spill in my trunk.  What a mess!  My favorite way to eat a potato?  Baked.

3. What's the last thing you felt 'green with envy' over? 
~ People who have great relationships with their grown children.

4.  What's at the end of your rainbow?
~ I would be happy with either a Ford Mustang (in Grab Me Blue, thank you) or a larger house or at least an addition to this one....not so I can have more stuff, but so more people can be here.  It's pretty snug for a party or hosting Tim's humongous family for anything.

5. March 12th marks the anniversary of the death of Anne Frank (June 12, 1929-March, 1945).  Anne's diary detailing her time spent hiding from the Nazi's during the war ranks as one of the best selling books of all time.  Besides your blog, do you keep any sort of diary or journal?  Was this a habit you developed as a child or is journaling something new for you?
~ Journaling is a life-long habit for me.  I bought my first little blue diary with a key when I was 7.  I've kept journals ever since.  I keep a personal journal and a prayer journal.  The post above today's Hodgepodge is about a 40-Day written prayer journey I am on with some other bloggers.

6. What's an item in your home or closet that contains every color of the rainbow?
~ All I can think of is a beach towel.

7.  Write a limerick with you as the subject.  You can do it!!  Just remember this is a family friendly blog...don't make me get out my wooden spoon. 
~ There once was a lady named Stacy,
   Who was told not to write racy.
    It was hard as could be,
    I give up, said she
   And went to put on something lacy.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
~ Did you hear the news story about the golfer in Illinois?  Can you imagine....you're just standing there playing a round of golf and....whooooomp!  You're 20 feet underground!  That had to be absolutely terrifying.  I can't even imagine.  

They say you have better odds of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery.  I wonder what the odds were of standing on THAT particular spot at THAT particular time?

Please Take a Moment to Fill Out a Survey Card (You will NOT be entered to win anything)

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Good morning!  I'm joining up with Dawn for Week 3 of Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen.  If you are looking for a devotional, may I recommend this one?  It is perfect if you are a writer....and most of you are (at least to some extent) or you wouldn't be blogging.

I am loving my journey through the 40 days.  Not only do the daily scriptures,  reflections and prompts help me to focus my prayer on one thing rather than rambling endlessly all over trying to cover everything at once, but they are spot-on, taking me where I need to go in my relationship with God.  Each day is a joy as I focus on yet another aspect of who God is....and he is so much!

The other day we were to reflect on God's names, on the things that we call him, on who he is to us.  This is what I wrote:

You are God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth when I bow before you to worship, praise and wonder.

You are God, Lord and Heavenly Father when I come quietly and humbly.

You are Father God, Abba....Daddy when I hurt, when I feel scared and alone and you are the Great Comforter that I seek.

There is a name for every time that I need you.  Father, bring your name to my lips in every instance.  May my call to you be a sweet, sweet sound that pleases you and brings you joy.

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1. My real life friends came through with another question this week so thank you real life friends. When you've eaten in a restaurant do you complete their comment card? Do you take online surveys highlighted at the bottom of store receipts? 
~ No, I don't usually.  The exceptions would be service that was so good it was out of the normal and service that was so bad you just can't let it slide.

2. The (US) ban on women in combat was lifted at the end of January. It will probably be next year before specifics are worked out, but its been reported over 200,000 front line positions will eventually open up to women.  Your thoughts? 
~ I think women should have the opportunity to serve in any capacity they choose, but I am torn on this one because I do think that it might make a very big difference on the front line.  Everything is heightened under such circumstances and I think with emotions running high, adrenaline pumping, and danger waiting, you may find soldiers taking comfort in each other when they shouldn't.  I think it's possible, as well, that some of the male soldiers may not be able to treat the women as "just another soldier."  By that I mean that they may worry about protecting them and looking out for them more than they would for a male soldier and that could put their own life in danger.  I don't know....I guess we'll have to wait and see how it works out.

3.  In looking back at all the blog posts you've written, what's your favorite posttitle? 
~ "Gee Whiz"  was the title of a meme post about things starting with the letter Gee.  That post still gets quite a few hits.

4. What's worse-overly permissive parents or overly protective parents?  Did your own parents lean more to the permissive or the protective category?  If you're a parent where do you fall? 
~ I think they both cause a lot of problems.  I grew up with the overly protective/strict parents and I know how I was the f.irst time I was out from under their thumb.  Though, I can say that even though I went a little nuts with my first taste of freedom, my foundation is solid.  I have a very clear set of morals and values.  The problem with the permissive parents is that the kids don't have that base.  The kids raised in that manner seem to mostly have an attitude of entitlement.  The world owes them, they think.

5.  Candlelight-moonlight-firelight-bright lights in the big city...which one's your favorite? 
~ Definitely firelight, whether it's a cozy fire in the fireplace on a cold winter night or a summer bonfire.  There's just something almost hypnotic about a fire.

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6. Dr. Seuss's birthday was celebrated on Saturday. What's a favorite book you remember (Seuss or otherwise) from your own childhood?  Did books play an important role in your growing up years? Explain. ~ Books played a huge role in my childhood and continue to today.  My mom was a librarian and I love to read so there were books...lots and lots of books.  Always. Still.  Mom encouraged me to read anything and I started reading adult novels around the age of 12.  I still read age-appropriate material, but didn't back down from monster reads like Taylor Caldwell's "The Captains and the Kings."  The first book I remember is "Doctor Goat."

7.  To quote Dr. Seuss...

"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere." 

from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Share something funny you've recently read, seen or heard.  

~ This tickled my funny bone in it's true-ness.

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
~ Enjoying the first snow day of the year, here.  As I look out the kitchen window I'm seeing about 4 inches of heavy, wet, "heart attack" (the heavy stuff that strains the heart when you try to shovel it) snow.  It continues to fall and should for several hours yet.  I'm glad of the extra day and plan to sneak in a little extra sleep, do some laundry, a little cleaning, read, and make a big pot of beef-vegetable soup for tonight's dinner.  Tim will welcome it when he gets home tonight.  

You all stay safe and warm today!

Writing to God: Week 2 & A Farewell to February Hodgepodge

Still...still...STILL.

Be still is your command.

Be still and... know.

In the stillness and the quiet is...YOU.

Linking up w/ Dawn for
Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen

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1.  When were you last facing an ocean? Using just ONE word, describe how you felt as you faced that ocean. 
~ It's been a while since I last faced the ocean, but to describe how it made me feel in one word....FREE!

2. What are three sounds you hate to hear?
~ Any living thing, human or animal, crying in pain or fear.  A ringing phone in the middle of the night.  Whining.
  
3. This question comes to you courtesy of some real life friends. Hi real life friends! When you shop for yourself, do you try everything on in the store before buying or do you buy, try on at home, and then return what you don't like or what doesn't fit?
~ It completely depends on how I'm feeling that day, what I'm wearing, how much time I have, when I need the outfit.....if I'm tired or rushed I might not try stuff on.  If I'm wearing clothes that are a real pain to keep taking off and putting back on...not going to do it.  If I need the outfit for later that day.....I'll be trying it (and approximately 42 more outfits) on....and chances are that none of them will make me happy.

4. February 26th is National Pistachio Day...are you a fan of the little green nut? Do you use them in cooking and baking or prefer to eat them right out of the shell?
~ I don't like nuts of any kind.  Peanut butter is the only thing I will eat.

5. When did you last have to compromise with someone?  Were you happy to reach the compromise or slightly irritated it was necessary? 
~ Um, I'm married, have kids, work with kids, preside over the church council....I compromise all the time.  I don't mind and think it's a good thing unless it requires me to go against my core biblical beliefs...at which point there will be NO compromise.

6.  Have you ever written a letter to an elected official? Did you get a response?
~ I spent a summer in high school working away from home in the Pocono Mountains for the Youth Conservation Corps.  I would have been old enough the following year to return as a counselor/leader, but President Reagan cut funding for the program.  I wrote to him and also to my congressman, John Heinz (yes, Teresa Heinz-Kerry's first husband and the one who left her with oodles of $$$).  I got a form postcard back from the White House thanking me for my input and telling me that my opinion had been filed appropriately.  Yeah, we all know what that meant.  Sen. Heinz on the other hand, sent me a personal letter that he actually signed.  I still have it somewhere.

7. We 'March' into a new month at the end of this week...what's something on your March calendar guaranteed to make you smile?
~ Five days off work at Easter!

8.  Insert your own random thought here.
~ So very, very glad the big storm yesterday and today turned out to be the storm that wasn't.  I have had more than enough winter at this point.  We've not had any snow days.  The arrival of the weather always seems to be such that the buses are already on the road or the kids are already at school and we have no choice but to continue.  I'm sick of ice, too.  We have a dirt parking lot at work and it ends up being a sheet of ice.  Last Friday we had a short period of flash freezing.  It didn't last long and there wasn't a lot of ice, but I managed to fall.  I landed on my hands and knees and did it ever hurt!  I drove that afternoon, though, and spent the evening with it propped up with a cool pack on it.  It's still sore and hurts like a bugger whenever I sit still for a while.  Since driving is what I do...that's quite a bit.  The range of motion just isn't there...thinking I may have to go see the doctor if it doesn't improve in the next couple of days.